Russian scope opinions?

It's no secret that the Russians think differently than we do in the west, which I think is a great thing....not getting into how they apply it. It's just terrific how they have looked at a problem and come at it from a completely different direction.

Has anyone messed with some of the Russian from Kalinka? They are different for sure but I have been told that the optics quality is akin to staring through a vodka bottle.

I know they are designed for the AK/SKS/Vepr etc but I was looking at one of their 6x42 Weaver mounts with the cool Dragunov reticle for one my battle rifles, like an FN-49 or even (God Forbid!) an M1A. The ballistics are about the same for the 7.62x54r so it seems like it would work.

Opinions? Yeah, I know I can get a 6x42 SWFA for about the same or maybe less...

I had an original SVT scope years ago. It was made in Belarus if I remember right. It took a weird battery for the reticle. I found one at Radio Shack for it. I used that on my 223 AK for about 10 years before I sold it. The one I had had some of the best glass I ever seen.

I can not say about the new made stuff.

A few years back I bought one of the Century Arms ersatz snipers built on an arsenal reworked Tikka M39 Moisin-Nagant which had been fitted up with a Cold War-era PU scope with the mount ordinarily used for the PK machinegun. Optics are sharp and clear to the edges of the field with no hoop or barrel distortion. Adjustments are coarse, as is their custom, but once zeroed and locked down the metric graduations on the elevation turret are dead-nuts from 200-800 metres using handloaded Sierra .311" diameter 174-grain MatchKings in Norma brass with Federal 210M primers with 44 grains of RL15, which is a ballistic match for the Russian yellow-tip heavy "D" ball, but with a match quality bullet. With good ammo the M39 shoots as well as an accurized M1 Garand or M14.

Cannot fault the scope at all!

Attachment 186623

I have a similar MN as Outpost has. The scope, as he mentions is rock solid and clear, but I don't think that the lenses are coated as there can be some halo effects in bright light. The reticle is not centering, but the mount is well aligned so my reticle is in the center.

I once had an assignment in South America where I had a sniper section in the unit I advised. They had Mauser 98 bolt rifles with Soviet scopes. The scopes had all the bells and whistles, but were so heavy that they sheared the scope base screws off regularly. I was not real impressed with the Soviet range finding solution in them, but it worked to a degree. Odd as that same system showed up transposed with the normal mill dot reticle in the Night Force scopes on our Mk 13 Mod 5 rifles later in my career.

For the life of me, I can't remember the brand name on them if there even was one, but here is one mounted on one of the Model 98 rifles. You'll cringe at the fix for the sheared screw issue, but what else do you do when mission trumps etiquette.

I've also got an Ishvesk made M91/30 sniper (Scharfschuetze and I got them together), both are excellent shooter in and were in new/rebuilt condition when we got them. The 3.5X PU scope and mount were developed for the round receivered MN M91/30 in the late '30s and served the combloc nations very well for many years. While the PU scope reticle is not centered the base is adjustable for windage and elevation so the individual rifle can be zeroed keeping the reticle sufficiently centered. I centered the reticle in mine and then used the base adjustments to zero at 600m. That keeps the reticle basically as close to the center using the elevation adjustments from 100m to 1300m. No, I have not found any 7.62x54R "D" milsurp ammo for sale stateside to take advantage of that but match loads with the 174 gr Sierra MK are accurate enough (basically the M91/30 sniper shoots MOA with that load) to stay on an E Target through 1000m (1100 yds).

The 4X PE scope was an improvement over the PU and continued development led to the 6X PSO-1 scope found on the SVD Dragunov had the Range finder reticle. I found over the years that the optics were certainly adequate but not as sharp and clear as todays optics. However, in 2007 I had the opportunity to use a new SVD with a new PSO-! scope on it at Camp Pendleton. The optics were very good. Several commercial export models of the PSO-1 scope have been sold stateside in the last 15 or so years. I've used the PSO-1 on real SVDs, Romak wannabe's and MNs (mostly N39 Finns) and have found them to very adequate. On the M39 MNs they were effective to 1000m. I found the range finder to be very adequate for hitting E target sized targets out to 6-700m. Beyond that it was pretty iffy as even knowing the size of the target bracketing with the curved lines and guessing at what was 1.5m or .5m was the iffy part along with the accuracy limitations of the SVD let alone the Romaks. With the reworked to a nice 2 stage triggers on the M39s hits to 1000m was in the 80+5% IF you could get an accurate range with that reticle.


The few Russian made scopes I've seen the last few years (sorry, I don't recall the makes either) have shown increased quality. Have no idea about the repeatability of adjustments but current literature indicates the better Russian scopes are repeatable.


Larry Gibson

Larry, were the newer made scopes made by IOR? I thought I seen them on a Russian Dragunov on a gun when they went into Crimea? It was also on one of the 9x39 Sniper rifles

Tomme

Sorry, but I just don't recall exactly. The optics in the SVD scope were the best I've seen in a Russian scope. They were quite good actually.

Larry Gibson

I saw two capture scopes from 1st gulf war. Old back then. Very coarse adjustments.

Shiloh

After WW2 the russian's had captured the region where the german optic industry was located. They took full advantage of the lens making craftsman and techniques - but I will say you may want to compare the new production stuff as quality control seems to be lacking - I have some Barska stuff and checked out have a dozen at the store and took the best one of the bunch - the rifle scope did expire, not the lenses but me ham handing the adjustments too hard as the brass sheared. Binoculars are still good.

Barska is made in China. Not even in the same league as the Russian military optics